Wild At Heart
by Runningdiva
Summary: A southern sweetheart faces the dark side to life as she transitions from the life she had grown to love to a world where she has to face who she really is.


I gave up on my first fanfic because of writer's block, so please review if possible to give me motivation to work on and finish this one :)

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As I watched my Pinto horse Freckles gallop across the field against the fading Texas sunset, I could only think of how perfect life was. Earlier that day I had won blue ribbons in barrel racing and jumping at the junior rodeo and afterwards my parents had treated me to ice cream at what I think is the best ice cream shop in the entire world. I had also seen my crush from school there and he had told me I had the prettiest eyes this side of the Mississippi. I hadn't seen him since school got out a week ago, and though I had longed to see him he lived on the far side of town. Our town was fairly large in size yet had a population of less than five hundred people due to the enormity of the ranches and dairy farms that created a quilt pattern across the town. There were, however, a growing amount of condominium complexes sprouting up along the main road for families who didn't have farming skills in their cards.

A warm southern wind was blowing strands of my dirty-blonde hair from the two braids that dangled over my shoulders and I tried to brush the rebellious hairs behind my ears to no avail. I noticed that the wind was starting to pick up to more than a typical evening breeze, and my oversized pink flannel shirt was starting to ripple with the wind. Looking towards the sunset I saw that there were some clouds beginning to build and I hoped that perhaps a storm would come and save us from the searing heat and humidity that had been plaguing the area for the past week.

"She gave some good runs today, Charlie," a voice said from behind me, "you should be proud."

I shifted my body around on the fence post I was sitting on and smiled at the tanned face of my father. He was wearing his favorite pair of faded Levi's with his typical stained white t-shirt, and was breaking in the workboots Mama had gotten him for Father's Day. I loved the way he dimpled whenever he smiled because they seemed to make his whole face light up.

"Freckles is always good to me when she knows she gets some sugar cubes afterwards." I giggled as Freckles tried to get Daddy's Morgan horse, Licorice, out of her favorite grazing spot in the corral. All of a sudden a familiar feeling came to me and I started to feel on edge.

"Hey daddy," I said, "I think there may be a storm comin'. Maybe we should get the animals inside so they don't gotta stay out in the rain."

Daddy only chuckled and ruffled my hair. "Sweetie if we were to put the animals inside every time a storm came, they'd spend more time in the barn than in the fields! Now I gotta go help your mama finish cleanin' up the kitchen from dinner, and then we're headin' into town to pick up some feed since we're almost out. Think you can hold down the fort until Meeka comes home?"

"Of course I can, daddy! Y'all better get goin' soon or else you're gonna get stuck in the mud at the end of the driveway." I didn't like the feeling that came to my head every time a storm was coming. It always ached like it did after my sister Meeka had been playing music too loud in her car. I watched my father walk towards the farmhouse and wipe his feet on the rug before going into the kitchen. Mama always hates it when any of us drag dirt onto the white tiled kitchen floor.

I wondered where my sister Meeka was. It had to be around eight o'clock and she usually drove back from her boyfriend Travis's house by dinner. I almost gagged when I thought of all the things she could be doing with him without our parents around. Sure, Michaela was sixteen and twice my age, but I swear that girl can be dumber than a doorknob. Just the other day she found out that there were fifty states instead of forty-eight even though she had clearly learned about it in all the years of schooling. It seemed like after she grew boobs a switch went on in her brain and all of a sudden all she cared about was going to the mall a town over and wearing jeans that are worth more than half my wardrobe.

Mama entered both of us in the Southern Belle beauty pageant in a nearby city a few months back because Meeka had already won so many and she wanted me to be more girly. She dressed us both in frilly pageant gowns and put ringlet curls in my hair which I thought made me look like a woman from one of those old western movies. At the hotel we stayed at she caked so much makeup on my face that I thought the pores on my face might suffocate and explode. I put on my best smile for Mama and Meeka through all of the categories though I knew there was no way I could beat Meeka for the grand supreme title, or even any of the other eight year-olds to win my category. When I ended up winning the entire pageant, Mama was so proud of me but ended up comforting Meeka through the bathroom door for an hour as my drama queen of a sister bawled her eyes out and claimed she was the ugliest thing on earth. She hasn't really spoken to me much since then, and had instead decided to start calling me supergirl to make fun of the fact that I carried the mutant gene. She knew how much I hated having that stupid gene even though I didn't have powers or anything.

Snapping back to reality I remembered that I had to tell Mama or Daddy to get a new curry comb from the feed store because mine had landed in a cow pie that morning at the rodeo. I ran to the house to make sure I got there before they left for the store, and almost ran over our Corgi dog Patches. Forgetting to wipe my feet off, I ran into the kitchen just as my parents were about to walk out the front door to the pickup.

"Mama, don't forget to get a curry comb since I dropped it this morning!" I said out of breath.

She turned her head and smiled before saying she wouldn't forget. She looked down at my feet before saying, "Oh and Charlotte, make sure you sweep up any of the dirt I'm sure you dragged in." She winked before getting into the old red pickup truck next to Daddy. Mama always said she thought my name was too pretty and refused to call me Charlie like everyone else. I watched as they drove out of the long driveway and their car disappeared behind a patch of trees down the road. Turning away, I took the broom from the front porch and took off my boots before sweeping the dirt on the floor out the back door. I could faintly hear rumbles of thunder in the distance and instantly remembered that I had to put Freckles in the stable before she got too spooked by the lightning.

I ran out of the back door and I realized that the wind had gotten gusty and was starting to blow dust around the corrals. Knowing the storm was about to bear down on the ranch, I ran to my brown and white speckled horse and stroked her head. She was already antsy from the first sounds of thunder and the flashes that reflected against the surface of the pond she was standing near. I quickly slipped a lead rope onto her bridle and hurried her into her stable just as it began to rain. After I had put fresh hay and oats into her feed bucket, I ran to the barn door and saw that the once beautiful sunset had turned into a dark sky that looked an ominous grey and green. The rain began to pick up so I sprinted towards the house and stood under the awning that covered the back porch to dry off.

All of a sudden lightning hit a tree in the middle of one of our cornfields and I could hear the alarmed whinnies of the horses as thunder immediately crackled across the farm. I put my hand over my heart as I felt the beat stuttering back into pace after being scared half to death. The rain started to come down in sheets and I could barely make out the outline of the barn as I turned on my bare feet and ran into the house without bothering to wipe my feet off. I wanted to call Travis's house to tell Meeka to stay where she was until the storm was over, but Mama had always warned me not to touch anything plugged into the wall during a storm or else I could get shocked.

A sudden sharp pain in my head made me double over onto my knees and a bad feeling took hold in my stomach just as hail began to clink against the roof and windows of the farmhouse. I then faintly heard the sound that had haunted my dreams for years: the sound of the tornado siren. We had practiced tornado drills at school and as a family once a month, but whenever the siren went off I started to panic. I frantically ran to the front door, swung it open, and tried to look for Meeka's car down the road but was blinded by the torrential downpour and the hail.

"Meeekaaa!" I shouted her name frantically numerous times before my voice started to go hoarse and I ran back towards the kitchen. The lights flickered off and since the sky was as dark as night, it was almost impossible for me to find the emergency bag in the cupboard underneath the sink. I slid open the back door quickly as I sprinted outside towards the storm cellar, being pelted with hailstones that must have been the size of golf balls.

Finally reaching the cellar doors, I struggled to open them against the strong winds that threatened to blow me away. The handle was slippery and the resistance of the wind made the doors heavier than anything I had ever lifted. I began to cry hysterically as I began to hear the familiar roar of a twister and the doors still weren't budging. Whether it was the adrenaline or a break in the wind I don't know, but one of the doors suddenly swung open and I rushed down the stairs as it slammed shut behind me. I felt for the chain to turn on the light and when I found it gave it a tug to wash the cellar in a wave of dim light. I slid the lock of the cellar doors into place and suddenly worried that I wouldn't be able to hear my sister or parents knocking on the cellar doors over the pounding of the hail and rain. I cowered into the back corner against a bench and hugged the damp canvas of the emergency bag against my chest. Tears continued to stream down my face as the volume of the roaring sound increased, and I wished Mama, Daddy, and Meeka were here to hug me and tell me everything was going to be alright.

The roar grew as loud as a freight train and I thought it was never going to go away until the sound began to decrease and only the pitter patter of rain remained. I realized that I was shaking as I tried to stand up and instead stumbled into one of the walls of the tiny cellar. Gingerly climbing the stairs I looked to see that the house was diminished to a pile of rubble and the barn was only half-standing. Trying to calm myself down, I clutched the friendship bracelet on my wrist that my best friend had given to me, and told myself that everyone was fine and everything was going to be alright.

* * *

The funerals were held a few days later at the local church. I still wore my pink flannel shirt and dirty jeans because all my other clothes had been blown away with everything else. Mama and Daddy's truck had hydroplaned and swerved off a bridge into the local creek where their car sank and they drowned as Daddy tried to save Mama after she got swept away by the current. Meeka had been driving home from Travis's house when she tried to outrun the tornado and was instead picked up and twisted around a tree, bending steel like it was rubber. There hadn't been a wake for any of them due to the conditions of their bodies, but I don't think I would have been able to look at the three people who meant so much to me yet whose souls were not here anymore.

All the people in town had come to the funeral and my clothes stuck out in a sea of black. People kept walking past where I sat and hugged me or kissed my forehead without saying anything. Everyone in town knew me as if I was their own daughter, yet nobody knew what to say to the girl who lost everything she had ever known. Without any relatives I was to be taken away by a social worker the next morning to what she called a "group home", which I instantly labeled as an orphanage.

Though my parents and sister had just died, I had yet to shed a single tear because I reminded myself that Daddy had always said crying represented weakness and there could be no weakness in a farm girl. I hated seeing everyone look at me as if I was a lost puppy on the side of the road, and decided I didn't want to sit in this place any longer. I got up and ran past groups of adults talking and pushed aside a younger boy who was chasing after his sister. I knew I should have apologized, but I was a girl on a mission and in my grief I could care less.

I felt relieved as I ran out the door and then slowed my pace as I aimlessly walked around the cemetery where my family was soon to be buried. I came across three rectangular holes in front of three glossy headstones bearing the names of my favorite people in the world. I sat down on the edge of one of them and stared up to the sky wishing it was all a dream and I would wake up from the nightmare that had become my life.

I heard the sound of someone coming up behind me, but I was too absorbed in my thoughts to turn around and address them. I didn't have to wait to acknowledge them because they began to speak as soon as they stopped next to me.

"I'm very sorry for your loss, Charlotte." The accent of the man seemed out of place from the collection of Southern drawls, and I immediately placed it as being British. Curious, I turned my head and shifted my body to see a man in a wheelchair next to me. He was wearing suit fancier than any I had ever seen at church, and he had a kind look to his face under a head free of any hair.

I just looked at him solemnly and nodded my head.

"My name is Charles Xavier and I know that you're supposed to be going with a state worker tomorrow morning, but I wanted to offer you a place to stay at a school I run for mutants."

"Mutants?" I asked with a confused tone to my voice, "But I don't have any powers; I only have the mutant gene."

"Yes, but what if I told you that you're going to become one of the most powerful mutants ever known?" I thought he must be trying to convince me to go with him, but the look on his face was sincere and for some reason I believed him.

I gave him a small smile despite the mood of the atmosphere before I said, "Well then, sir, I'd say that you should tell me more about this school of yours."


End file.
